Field
The disclosure relates to monitoring of digital images, including pictures and videos, on mobile devices.
Description of the Related Art
Mobile telephones are now ubiquitous in our society. The number of mobile devices, including mobile phones, in the hands of minors is increasing yearly. Current smart phones are like small computers and are geared for accessing the Internet and social media. Cameras on these smart phones are a big selling point as pictures and videos are a driving force behind the social media rage. Unlike computers, smart phones are always with the child and can be accessed anywhere at any time.
Children, and in particular teenagers, often use smart phones in an unsupervised manner. Because children and teenagers generally do not consider the impact of a picture or video in the long term, there is an epidemic of inappropriate and/or embarrassing pictures and videos being taken, received, and shared with their peers. Since taking, receiving and sending pictures and videos is a daily occurrence with children and teenagers, they are desensitized as to what is appropriate use of mobile device cameras. They may believe that once they delete a picture it is gone. Children and teenagers do not realize that once a picture has been posted online or sent to their peers it may pass into cyberspace, never to be recovered or retrieved from public view. Lacking appropriate inhibition that comes from experience, children and teenagers use cameras on mobile devices to take and share pictures and videos everywhere, every day, without any thought of the consequences.